


Recurrence

by lightningwaltz



Category: Messiah Project - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Obsession, One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 03:52:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4862009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amane and Souma, over the course of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Amane and Souma have a consistently interesting relationship to me. Amane, in particular, seems really fascinated by Souma, although he can't seem to decide exactly _how_ he feels about Souma.
> 
> So this fic is just... me writing some missing scenes to explore Amane's side of this in more detail. This will probably have four parts, and will go in chronological order.
> 
> Oh yeah. I clicked "choose not to use archive warnings" because I anticipate this fic going some pretty dark places. The whole thing is from Amane's POV which is sort of a warning in and of itself.

As far as Amane is concerned, the sequences of life corkscrew out and back again, in a dance of persistent homecoming. It’s like vanishing smoke rings, or a ferris wheel on fire. It’s a whirlpool of delicate, glass-edged water that somehow yank you under. Things happen, and they happen forever until everything recognizable has been spent. 

But, if he has to identify the discrete moment he actually… _experiences_ Souma, then everything starts in an unremarkable room without windows. It starts with him scrutinizing Haruki, after all the evening’s excitement dwindles in the pre-dawn hours. 

Haruki grunts a hello, and then returns to changing the bandage on his leg. For some reason, the plastic white first aid kit looks much too civilized next red-brown stains on crumpled gauze. Amane can smell the blood; the coppery tang of it is abundant in his throat. No one had actually had to tease a bullet from Haruki, since there’d been no bullet in the first place. However, blanks can- and do- embed themselves deep, if you get close enough. 

“Where the hell did you get Higayama from?” When Haruki speaks, one can almost hear the tiny scratches that must be like webbing across his vocal chords. He’d screamed in the office, and he’d kept screaming in the cavernous trunk of the getaway van. He’d screamed even when the injected painkillers must have been working their magic, and the performance was no longer necessary. Amane- always appreciative of a good temper tantrum- has been pulling apart that sound ever since. He’s been like a scientist examining the fine wings of a dead butterfly.

“Same place as the rest of us.” Anywhere, everywhere, and nowhere. “At least he didn’t cap you.” Haruki’s knee would have crushed into pieces, like the shell of an egg. Bullets or no bullets. That would have justified all sorts of hollering. 

“Okay then.” It’s jovial, and also a clear dismissal. Haruki loosens a sheet of bandaging from its neat whorl. The material is as pale as snow when compared to the shoeprint bruise on his collarbones. Amane wonders what would happen if he pinched his fingers into the skin there. Would Haruki scream again, or is he done with that for the rest of his life? 

He crouches down, and receives nothing but towering disinterest. Haruki has his knife out, and he carves away at the gauze. All the loosely wound threads pull tight, until they snap against the perfectly honed edge. Haruki’s fingernails are ragged from the fight, purple and battered and beautiful. 

The oxygen they share stings with disinfectant. It roils with ozone straight from the eye of a storm.

Haruki blinks first; “what’s with you? Do you need something?”

Amane shoots for a blasé snort, but it’s too high in his nose and so it sounds more like a squeak. “Just thinking about how you fought us pretty damn hard.”

The injury disappears under loops of cloth, until it’s possible to pretend it doesn’t exist. Amane can see how the taut edges will leave indents on Haruki’s leg. 

“You were trying to ‘abduct’ me. I don’t think I’d have made as effective an impression if I’d also been knocked into the corner and _stayed_ there.” Haruki could have selected any number of logical retorts, but Amane appreciates that he chose to be a dick instead. It lends a personal touch. 

Haruki gave up on his blazer a while back, and his slacks have been abandoned, tossed into a corner of the room. But he’s still in the button-down shirt (mostly unbuttoned at the moment.) He’d looked rather classy and average in this getup, just before everything had gone up in flames. When Amane had emerged from hiding in the cubicle, he’d been amused at how little sense it made to see him next to that vision in orange. He’d wondered then- as he wonders how- whether Haruki’s partners had picked up on the inherent _wrongness_ of it all.

And what would that guy think, now? After all, Haruki looks abandoned, and unfinished. He looks exactly like what he is; a misplaced person re-emerging from playing dress-up. 

“So, your partner…” Oh, this is kinda interesting. Haruki freezes up, if only for a second. “How did he end up with that stupid jumpsuit? Did he pull the short straw or something?” 

“We all have- we all had roles assigned to us.” Again with the non-answers. There’s nothing to grab onto. Amane would have better luck scaling a flat wall. 

Or he could take a bulldozer to everything. And isn’t that much more satisfying? “You liked him, didn’t you?” He cracks up, because all the color drains from Haruki’s face. _Easy,_ he wants to say, _you’ve had a long night. You can’t afford to lose any more blood. Not when you’re being thrown right back into work._

“Why do you care?” Haruki says, in the tone a lot of people use before excising Amane from their life. There’s sweat cascading down his forehead, and darkening the hair sticking to his temples. He rubs some of it away, just as Amane realizes it must be stinging his eyes. 

“Yeah, seems like you’re pretty screwed now.” Amane is quite comfortable ignoring Haruki’s denial. “Don’t they have fucked up rules?” 

In truth, Amane doesn’t know much about that. It’s a fair bet that an organization like Sakura uses and trashes people like cheaply made spare parts. But, until now, the particulars have never really interested him. All those customs and norms are like fancy clothes hiding a rotten heart. A fancy cathedral built on a fault line.

“Yeah, they’re probably assigning him a new partner right now.” The alacrity of Haruki’s response is fascinating. It indicates that this is a thought he can’t drown under various tasks. It indicates that he wants nothing more than to say it aloud, for all his contrived aloofness. “And he’s not going to be allowed to come seek me out, or-” 

Haruki smacks the first aid kit, and it goes flying across the room. A few cotton balls fly out of it, and a carton of bandaids clatters against the wall. 

“Yeah, I don’t want to talk about Souma.” Haruki tries to rise to his feet, winces, sits back down. “How many times do I have to say that?” 

“You never had to say anything at all. I’m not holding a gun to your head. Do you want me to? Would that make it easier?” He wants to pat Haruki on the shoulder.

“I don’t want to see him again. It’s better if he thinks I’m dead.” Haruki isn’t even talking to Amane, anymore. If someone strapped him up to a lie detector test, the machine would probably freak out. It would shake so hard it would fall to the floor.

Abruptly, Amane is bored. Underneath all the captivating trappings, Haruki’s predicament is an old and tired one. It’s a story of ambivalence and loss. It’s about getting dragged into the indifferent currents of life. Amane knows how it begins, sustains, ends. He knows how it will begin again.

“And if you are reunited with him again, I’m guessing you’ll kill him.” That would be the easiest thing to do, right? Like ripping a bandage right off. “Souma’s a lucky guy.” 

“No, if I do see him again I’ll get him to leave with me.” Haruki leans forward, and Amane realizes he’s picked up that knife again. A shaking hand wields it, but that voice has never been more certain. 

_Souma’s a lucky guy_. This time the thought is sincere.


	2. Chapter 2

They never leave Souma alone. 

Their captive is clever in the way of all undogmatic people, and that makes him a threat. Patting him down just drives that point home. Misu finds a knife in one of Souma’s pockets, and he hands it Amane. It’s Haruki’s; clearly taken from his body in that warehouse. When Amane lightly touches the edge, a thin line of blood flowers from his fingertip. He can see his smile reflecting in the side. Souma has taken care of the weapon, all this time. 

Whenever Amane is on guard duty, he’s preoccupied by the thought that Souma should be bored as hell. That's just how captivity tends to be. An hour or two of terror, that evens out into the dull realization that this will continue on, and on, and on. Until outside forces or death take pity on you.

Souma needs to do Amane the luxury of actually sleeping. He should be exhausted after all. Every time he fidgets, his body must be a minefield of bruises and cuts, of scraps and lacerations. Whenever Souma moves, Amane’s fists throb in remembrance. 

But when Souma bows his head and closes his eyes, his lips always draw tight. His thoughts emanate from him, in great, sweeping waves of silent screaming. It fills Amane’s ears, and this is a problem. There are only so many times he can hit Souma before his hands break.

“Aren’t you ever tired?” He crouches down a little, just to make sure Souma sees him. 

“I think you’re probably more worn-out than I am.” Souma almost smirks, and Amane wants to see the full deal. 

“How so?”

“You keep losing fights with a tied-up man.” 

That sends Amane pacing and laughing. There are so many things he wants to say, but no words match the inside of his head. He finds himself wanting Souma to name the sounds Amane is making. To match them to ideas, to assign them to sentences and concrete form. He seems like someone who's good at that.

But when he returns Souma is stoic again. He exudes tolerance, forbearance. He just looks like someone waiting for a train. Or a person. This is a worse betrayal than any joke at Amane’s expense. 

“Shiba’s not coming back for you, you know.” 

Souma blinks rapidly. His eyelashes are incongruously attractive, just like the rest of him. “Yeah? Says who?”

Amane has always lived for the moment when he raised his gun, or leapt forward with the dagger. He’s always treasured the moment he can see someone realize they’re in for a world of hurt.

“Haruki says.” He smiles wider. “Said.” 

Good. This is _good_. Souma knocks his head back against the pole, and his eyes slam shut again. He must be picturing his bedroom in Sakura. Or maybe a carefree drive on some highway, back before all of this began. Anywhere else.

But then, when he looks at Amane again, all the muscles in his face relax. 

“Damn, you must have had a shitty life. People must have been terrible to you.” 

It’s like swallowing an ice cube. Something sharp and unforgiving in his throat, and the sense he will suffocate in seconds. But then it all melts, spreading coldness and relief, even in the midst of abject discomfort. 

“Are you psychic now?” He says, realizes that that’s an admission. Of sorts. 

Souma almost smiles, and the pity in it will definitely smother Amane. “Hardly. It’s just totally obvious. I can see it in everything you do.” 

It’s funny- it’s objectively hilarious- because Amane can see certain things about Souma, too. Over at Sakura he must be _everyone_ ’s big brother. Aware of everyone’s hidden traumas, quick with a supportive word, quick with a well-timed joke. How strange and wonderful to be the only one in Souma’s cross-hairs, right now. To be the only one subject to this kind of perceptive analysis.

Even better; knowing Souma’s kindness can become weapon. Amane is pretty sure he’s the only one who’s been afforded this rare intimacy. 

He is so close to Souma that he can smell how much he’s in need of a shower. Amane wonders if their captive will ever get a chance to have another one, or if he’s heading into a dirty, obscure death. 

Souma puts up a brave face, but he can’t be strong all the time. When Amane touches Souma’s neck, he encounters a hasty, overwhelmed pulse. One that matches Amane’s own, beat for beat, and he suddenly knows he isn’t alone. That tempo continues to slam against his fingerprints, possibly intertwining with Amane’s very DNA. He pushes the heel of his hand in. Not enough to hurt, but he can feel all the fragile components of this man’s throat; the Adam’s apple that twitches with each swallow, the voice box, the slightly constricted windpipe. So many things Amane could ruin in just an instant.

He pulls his hand back, and admires the grace it must take to avoid gasping. Amane searches Souma’s expression, but ends up staring just above, at his forehead. The headband seems like an enigma, all of a sudden. He hooks his thumbs under it, and pulls up, just a little. He doesn’t get the thing off- not all the way- but it’s still like divesting someone of a façade, even as Souma’s eyes go blank (and that should have been a warning.). It doesn’t change much, on the surface of things. Amane sees a little more of Souma’s forehead, and some bangs drift down.

And yet… It makes Souma seem normal. It makes him seem unobtainable. 

_Does that partner of yours see you like this?_

He doesn’t have to ask. The answer is inherent in the question. 

“Uh, I’m…” he says, staring down at his own feet. He’s never been the strongest combatant, but he could probably pull on this headband until it snaps apart. Just like Haruki with that gauze, forever ago. “Yeah, I’m sorry.” He doesn't think about the words. They just spill out.

“I know you are,” Souma says, so quietly it’s the perfect substitute for kindness. 

Amane smooths the headband back into place, wishing someone could take his own emotions and place them in their correct locations. Just as easy. He works until Souma looks right again.

That’s when Souma _stomps down_ on Amane’s foot.

Pain, pain, _pain._ It blossoms up and up from his toes, obliterating all other things. He screams because it hurts, and because it’s so _wonderful_. There’s clarity in this sort of oblivion. It arranges everything, because that’s easy to do when there’s nothing else. 

He’s disappointed when the world streams back in, but Souma’s roaring almost makes up for it. 

“ _Never do that again!_ ” It’s Souma’s newest refrain, and Amane screams right back. They keep it up until Misu reappears and slams speech right out of Souma. 

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Misu, it’s fine.” Amane knows Misu must have heard him the first time, but he talks and talks because the silence is oppressive. It’s always been oppressive. "It's fine."

“I don’t know why we put you on guard duty,” Misu complains, but he leaves them alone all the same. Amane watches him go, suddenly afraid of turning aroumd.

When he does, he sees that Souma’s lower lip is cracked right open again, dyeing all the skin around it an obscene shade of red. 

“That was dramatic,” Souma says, across the distance between them. It's almost like he's waving a white flag, or extending an olive branch. Though he really has no reason to do so.

Amane hobbles forward, even though he shouldn’t. Not now. Not ever. He cleans off Souma’s chin with the corner of one of his sleeves. In the future, he will always remember that this stain came from Souma’s blood.


End file.
